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  • Jeremy Corbyn – 2017 Response to the Budget Statement

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 22 November 2017.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

    The reality test of this Budget has to be how it affects ordinary people’s lives. I believe, as the days go ahead and this Budget unravels, the reality will be that a lot of people will be no better off, and the misery that many are in will be continuing.

    Pay is now lower than it was in 2010, and wages are now falling again. Economic growth in the first three quarters of this year is the lowest since 2009 and the slowest of the major economies in the G7. It is a record of failure, with a forecast of more to come.

    Economic growth has been revised down. Productivity growth has been revised down; business investment, revised down; people’s wages and living standards, revised down. What sort of strong economy is that? What sort of “fit for the future” is that?

    You may recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the deficit was due to be eradicated by 2015. Then that moved to 2016; then to 2017; then to 2020. And now we are looking at 2025. The Government are missing their major targets, but the failed and damaging policy of austerity remains.

    The number of people sleeping rough has doubled since 2010. This year, 120,000 children will spend Christmas in temporary accommodation. Three new pilot schemes to look at rough sleeping across the whole country simply does not cut it. We want action now to help those poor people who are forced to sleep on our streets and beg for—[Interruption.]

    Mr Deputy Speaker

    Order. I think the Whips should know better. Mr Spencer, I am sure you could relax—please, we do not need any more from you. If not, leave the Chamber.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    The point I was making is that three new pilot schemes for rough sleepers simply does not cut it. It is a disaster for those people sleeping on our streets and forced to beg for the money for a night shelter. They are looking for action now from Government to give them a roof over their heads.

    In some parts of the country, life expectancy is actually beginning to fall. The last Labour Government lifted 1 million children out of poverty—it was an amazing achievement. Under this Government, an extra 1 million children will be plunged into poverty by the end of this Parliament. Some 1.9 million pensioners, or one in six of all pensioners, are living in poverty—the worst rate anywhere in western Europe. So, it is falling pay, slow growth and rising poverty. This is what the Chancellor has the cheek to call a strong economy.

    The Chancellor’s predecessor said they would put the burden on

    “those with the broadest shoulders”—[Official Report, 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 951]—

    so how has that turned out? The poorest 10th of households will lose 10% of their income by 2022, while the richest will lose just 1%—so much for “tackling burning injustices”. This is a Government tossing fuel on the fire.

    Personal debt levels are rising: 8.3 million people are over-indebted. If the Chancellor wants to help people out of debt, he should back Labour’s policy for a real living wage of £10 an hour by 2020. Working-class young people are now leaving university with £57,000-worth of debt because this Government—his Government—trebled tuition fees. The new Government policy is to win over young people by keeping fees at £9,250 per year—more debt for people who want to learn.

    But that is just one of the multitudes of injustices presided over by this Government. Another is universal credit, which we called on Ministers to pause and fix. That is the view of this House. It is the verdict of those on the frontline.

    Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)

    Keep going, Jeremy!

    Mr Deputy Speaker

    Mr Pincher, you shouted out “Keep going,” and the right hon. Gentleman will—but you will be going out of the Chamber.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    I would rather people stayed to listen, actually, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the reality—[Interruption.]

    Mr Deputy Speaker

    Order. Silence—that’s the difference. It will be in silence.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

    Maybe Government Members would like to listen to Martin’s experience. A full-time worker on the minimum wage, he said:

    “I get paid four weekly meaning that my pay date is different each month”.

    Because, under the universal credit system, he was paid twice in a month and deemed to have earned too much, his universal credit was cut off. He says:

    “This led me into rent arrears and I had to use a food bank for the first time in my life”.

    That is the humiliation that he and so many others have gone through because of the problems of universal credit. Would it not have been better to pause the whole thing and look at the problems it has caused?

    The Chancellor’s solution to a failing system causing more debt is to offer a loan, and a six-week wait, with 20% waiting even longer, simply becomes a five-week wait. This system has been run down by £3 billion of cuts to work allowances, the two-child limit and the perverse and appalling rape clause, and it has caused evictions because housing benefit is not paid direct to the landlord. So I say to the Chancellor again: put this system on hold so it can be fixed and keep 1 million of our children out of poverty.

    For years, we have had the rhetoric of a long-term economic plan that never meets its targets when what all too many people are experiencing is long-term economic pain—and hardest hit are disabled people, single parents and women—so it is disappointing that the Chancellor did not back the campaign by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) to end period poverty. He could have done that. Well done her on the campaign; shame on him for not supporting it.

    The Conservatives’ manifesto in the last election disappeared off their website after three days, and now some Ministers have put forward some half-decent proposals conspicuously borrowed from the Labour manifesto. Let me tell the Chancellor: as socialists, we are happy to share ideas. The Communities Secretary called for £50 million of borrowing to invest in house building; presumably, the Prime Minister slapped him down for wanting to bankrupt Britain. The Health Secretary has said that the pay cap is over, but where is the money to fund the pay rise?

    The Chancellor has not been clear today—not for NHS workers, our police, firefighters, teachers, teaching assistants, bin collectors, tax collectors, or armed forces personnel—so will he listen to Claire? She says:

    “My Mum works for the NHS. She goes above and beyond for her patients. Why does the government think it’s ok to under pay, over stress and underappreciate all that work?”

    The NHS chief executive says:

    “The budget for the NHS next year is well short of what is currently needed”.

    From what the Chancellor has said today, it is still going to be well short of what is needed. He said in 2015 that the Government would fund another 5,000 GPs, but in the last year we have had 1,200 fewer GPs—and we have lost community nurses and mental health nurses. The Chancellor promised £10 billion in 2015 and delivered £4.5 billion. So if he does not mind, we will wait for the small print on today’s announcement—but even what he said certainly falls well short of the £6 billion Labour would have delivered from our June manifesto.

    Over 1 million of our elderly are not receiving the care they need. Over £6 billion will have been cut from social care budgets by next March. [Interruption.] I hope the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) begins to understand what is like to wait for social care stuck in a hospital bed, with other people having to give up their work to care for them. The uncaring, uncouth attitude of certain Government Members has to be called out—[Interruption.]

    Mr Deputy Speaker

    Order. Carry on.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    That is why social care budgets are so important for so many very desperate people in our country.

    Our schools will be 5% worse off by 2019 despite the Conservative manifesto promising that no school would be worse off. Five thousand head teachers from 25 counties wrote to the Chancellor saying:

    “we are simply asking for the money that is being taken out of the system to be returned”.

    A senior science technician, Robert, wrote to me saying:

    “My pay”

    has been

    “reduced by over 30%. I’ve seen massive cuts at my school. Good teachers and support staff leave.”

    That is what does for the morale both of teachers and students in school. According to this Government, 5,000 head teachers are wrong, Robert is wrong, the IFS is wrong—everybody is wrong except the Chancellor.

    If the Chancellor bothered to listen to what local government is saying, he would know that it has been warning that services for vulnerable children are under more demand than ever, with more children being taken into care and more in desperate need of help and support. Yet councils are labouring with a £2 billion shortfall in the cost of dealing with vulnerable children. Local councils will have lost 80% of their direct funding by 2020. The reality of this across the country is women’s refuges closing, youth centres closing, libraries closing, museums closing, and public facilities understaffed, under-resourced and under-financed—it could be so different—but compassion can cost very little. Just £10 million is needed to establish the child funeral fund campaigned for so brilliantly by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). Why could not the Chancellor at least have agreed to fund that?

    Under this Government, there are 20,000 fewer police officers, and another 6,000 community support officers and 11,000 fire service staff have been cut as well. You cannot keep communities safe on the cheap. Tammy explains:

    “Our police presence has been taken away”

    from her village

    “meaning increasing crime. As a single parent I no longer feel safe in my own village, particularly”

    at night.

    Five and a half million workers earn less than the living wage—1 million more than five years ago. The Chancellor, last Sunday, could not even see 1.4 million people unemployed in this country. There is a crisis of low pay and insecure work affecting one in four women and one in six men, with a record 7.4 million people in working households living in poverty. If we want workers earning better pay and less dependent on in-work benefits, we need strong trade unions—the most effective way of boosting workers’ pay. Instead, this Government weakened trade unions and introduced employment tribunal fees, now scrapped thanks to the victory in the courts by Unison—a trade union representing its members.

    Why did not the Chancellor take the opportunity to make two changes to control debt: first, to cap credit card debt, so that nobody pays back more than they borrowed; and secondly, to stop credit card companies increasing people’s credit limit without their say-so? Debt is being racked up because the Government are weak on those who exploit people, such as rail companies hiking fares above inflation year on year, and water companies and energy suppliers. During the general election, the Conservatives promised an energy cap that would benefit

    “around 17 million families on standard variable tariffs”,

    but every bill tells millions of families that the Government have broken that promise.

    With £10 billion in housing benefit going into the pockets of private landlords every year, housing is a key factor in driving up the welfare bill. There were not too many words from the Chancellor about excessive rents in the private rented sector. With this Government delivering the worst rate of house building since the 1920s and a quarter of a million fewer council homes, any commitment would be welcome, but we have been here before. The Government promised 200,000 starter homes three years ago; not a single one has been built in those three years. We need a large-scale, publicly funded house building programme, not this Government’s accounting tricks and empty promises. Yes, we back the abolition in stamp duty for first-time buyers—because it was another Labour policy in our manifesto in June, not a Tory one.

    This Government’s continual preference for spin over substance means that across this country the words “northern powerhouse” and “midlands engine” are now met with derision. Yorkshire and Humber gets only a 10th of the transport investment per head given to London. Government figures show that every region in the north of England has seen a fall in spending on services since 2012. The midlands, east and west, receives less than 8% of total transport infrastructure investment, compared with the 50% that goes to London. In the east and west midlands, one in four workers is paid less than the living wage—so much for the midlands engine. Re-announced funding for the trans-Pennine rail route will not cut it, and today’s other announcements will not redress the balance.

    Combined with counterproductive austerity, this lack of investment has consequences in sluggish growth and shrinking pay packets. Public investment has virtually halved. Under this Government, Britain has the lowest rate of public investment in the G7, but it is now investing in driverless cars, after months of road testing back-seat driving in the Government.

    By moving from RPI to CPI indexation on business rates, the Chancellor has adopted another Labour policy, but why do the Government not go further and adopt Labour’s entire business rates pledge, including exempting plant and machinery, and an annual revaluation of business rates?

    Nowhere has the Government’s chaos been more evident than over Brexit. Following round after round of fruitless Brexit negotiations, the Brexit Secretary has been shunted out for the Prime Minister, who has got no further. Every major business organisation has written to the Government, telling them to pull their finger out and get on with it. Businesses are delaying crucial investment decisions, and if this Government do not get their act together, those businesses will soon be taking relocation decisions.

    Crashing out with no deal and turning Britain into a tax haven would damage people’s jobs and living standards, serving only a wealthy few. It is not as though this Government are not doing their best to protect tax havens and their clients in the meantime. The Paradise papers have again exposed how a super-rich elite is allowed to get away with dodging taxes. This Government have opposed measure after measure in this House—their Tory colleagues have done the same in the European Parliament—to clamp down on the tax havens that facilitate this outrageous leaching from our public purse. Non-paid tax and clever reinvestment to get away with tax hit hospitals, schools and housing, and they hit the poorest and most needy in our society. There is nothing moral about dodging tax; there is everything immoral about evading it.

    Too often, it feels as though there is one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest of us. The horrors of Grenfell Tower were a reflection of a system that puts profits before people and that fails to listen to working-class communities. In 2013, the Government received advice in a coroner’s report that sprinklers should be fitted in all high-rise buildings. Today, once again, the Government failed to fund the £1 billion investment needed. The Chancellor says that councils should contact them, but Nottingham and Westminster have done so, and they have been refused; nothing was offered to them. We have the privilege of being Members of Parliament, in a building that is about to be retrofitted with sprinklers to protect us. The message is pretty clear: this Government care more about what happens here than about what happens to people living in high-rise homes, in effect saying that they matter less.

    Our country is marked by growing inequality and injustice. We were promised, with lots of hype, a revolutionary Budget, but the reality is that nothing has changed. People were looking for help from this Budget, and they have been let down by a Government who, like the economy that they have presided over, are weak and unstable, and in need of urgent change. They call this a Budget fit for the future; the reality is that they are a Government no longer fit for office.

  • Philip Hammond – 2017 Budget Speech

    Below is the text of the Budget Speech made by Philip Hammond in the House of Commons on 22 November 2017.

    I report today on an economy that continues to grow, continues to create more jobs than ever before, and continues to confound those who seek to talk it down: an economy set on a path to a new relationship with our European neighbours and a new future outside the European Union—a future that will be full of change, full of new challenges, and, above all, full of new opportunities. In this Budget, we express our resolve to look forward, not back; to embrace that change; to meet those challenges head on; and to seize those opportunities for Britain.

    The negotiations on our future relationship with the European Union are in a critical phase. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been clear about the fact that we seek a deep and special partnership, based on free and frictionless trade in goods and services, close collaboration on security, and strong mutual respect and friendship; and, as Chancellor, I am clear about the fact that one of the biggest boosts that we can provide for businesses and families—one of the best ways to protect British jobs and prosperity as we build that new future—is to make early progress in delivering my right hon. Friend’s vision, with an implementation agreement that allows businesses to plan and invest with confidence. This Government will make the pursuit of that progress a top priority in the weeks ahead.

    While we work to achieve this deep and special partnership, we are determined to ensure that the country is prepared for every possible outcome. We have already invested almost £700 million in Brexit preparations and today I am setting aside over the next two years another £3 billion. I stand ready to allocate further sums if and when needed. No one should doubt our resolve.

    But this Budget is about much more than Brexit. The world is on the brink of a technological revolution—one that will change the way we work and live, and transform our living standards for generations to come. We face a choice: either we embrace the future, seize the opportunities which lie within our grasp and build on Britain’s great global success story; or, as the Labour party advocates, we reject change and turn inwards to the failed and irrelevant dogmas of the past.

    We have no doubts. We choose the future. We choose to run towards change, not away from it, and to prepare our people to meet the challenges ahead, not to hide from them. And the prize will be enormous because, for the first time in decades, Britain is genuinely at the forefront of this technological revolution—not just in our universities and research institutes, but this time in the commercial development labs of our great companies, and on factory floors and business parks across this land. But we must invest to secure that bright future for Britain, and at this Budget that is what we choose to do.

    We are listening and we understand the frustration of families where real incomes are under pressure. So at this Budget, we choose a balanced approach—yes, maintaining fiscal responsibility as we at last see our debt peaking, continuing to invest in the skills and infrastructure that will support the jobs of the future and building the homes that will make good on our promise to the next generation, but crucially also helping families to cope with the cost of living.

    As we invest in our country’s future, I have a clear vision of what that global Britain looks like: a prosperous and inclusive economy where everybody has the opportunity to shine, wherever in these islands they live and whatever their background, where talent and hard work are rewarded, and where the dream of home ownership is a reality for all generations; a hub of enterprise and innovation; a beacon of creativity; a civilised and tolerant place that cares for the vulnerable and nurtures the talented; an outward-looking, free-trading nation; and a force for good in the world. That is the Britain that I want to leave to my children—a Britain we can be proud of, and a country fit for the future. I know we will not build it overnight but we will lay the foundations in this Budget today. [Interruption.] Mr Deputy Speaker, I am being tempted with something a little more exotic here, but I will stick to plain water. I did take the precaution of asking the Prime Minister to bring a packet of cough sweets, just in case. [Laughter.]

    Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)

    Order. I think it might be hearing aids that we will all need if this noise continues.

    Mr Hammond

    I shall first report to the House on the economic forecasts of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. This is the bit with the “long, economicky words”. Once again, I thank Robert Chote and his team for their hard work over the last few weeks. I believe passionately that the best way to improve the lives of people across the length and breadth of this country is to help them get into work. I am acutely aware that 1.4 million people out of work is 1.4 million too many, so today I welcome the OBR forecast that there will be another 600,000 people in work by 2022. I am immensely proud of this Government’s record in having created over 3 million new jobs since 2010—incidentally, a rather far cry from the 1.2 million job losses that the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) predicted in 2011—but let nobody be in any doubt that this Government will continue their relentless focus on getting more people into work, giving them the security and peace of mind of a regular wage.

    I also want work to be good quality and well paid, and regrettably our productivity performance continues to disappoint. The OBR has assumed at each of the last 16 fiscal events that productivity growth would return to its pre-crisis trend of about 2% a year, but it has remained stubbornly flat. So today it revises down the outlook for productivity growth, business investment and GDP growth across the forecast period. The OBR now expects to see GDP grow 1.5% in 2017, 1.4% in 2018, 1.3% in 2019 and 2020, before picking back up to 1.5% and finally 1.6% in 2022, with inflation peaking at 3% in this quarter before falling back towards target over the next year. I reaffirm the remit for the independent Monetary Policy Committee and its 2% CPI inflation target.

    We took over an economy with the highest budget deficit in our peacetime history. Since then, thanks to the hard work of the British people, that deficit has been shrinking and next year will be below 2%. However, our debt is still too high and we need to get it down, not for some ideological reason but because excessive debt undermines our economic security, leaving us vulnerable to shocks; because it passes the burden unfairly to the next generation; and because it cannot be right to spend more on our debt interest than we do on our police and our armed forces combined. So I am pleased to tell the House that the OBR expects debt to peak this year and then gradually fall as a share of GDP—a turning point in our recovery from Labour’s crisis. Apparently not everyone shares the view that falling debt is good news. I have heard representations from Labour Members suggesting increasing the debt by £500 billion, taking us back to square one and wasting an extra £7 billion a year on debt interest. If they carry on like that, there will be plenty of others joining Kezia Dugdale in saying, “I’m Labour, get me out of here.”

    I have rejected these representations, and instead I reaffirm our pledge of fiscal responsibility and our commitment to the fiscal rules I set out last autumn, but now I choose to use some of the headroom I established then, so that as well as reducing debt, we can also invest in Britain’s future, support our key public services, keep taxes low and provide a little help to families and businesses under pressure: a balanced approach that will prepare Britain for the future, not seek to hide from it.

    Today, the OBR confirms that we are on track to meet our fiscal rules. Borrowing is forecast to be £49.9 billion this year. That is £8.4 billion lower than forecast at the spring Budget. After taking account of all decisions since the spring Budget, the OBR’s GDP revision and the measures I will announce today, borrowing will fall in every year of the forecast, from £39.5 billion next year to £25.6 billion in 2022-23, to reach its lowest level in 20 years. As a percentage of our GDP, it falls from 2.4% this year to 1.9% next year, then 1.6%, 1.5%, 1.3% and, finally, 1.1% in 2022-23. The OBR forecasts the structural deficit to be 1.3% of GDP in 2020-21, giving £14.8 billion of headroom against our 2% target. Debt will peak at 86.5% of GDP this year and then fall to 86.4% next year, then 86.1%, 83.1%, 79.3% and, finally, 79.1% in 2022-23—the first sustained decline in debt in 17 years. Under Conservative-led Governments, the hard work of the British people is steadily clearing up the mess left behind by Labour.

    At the heart of a global Britain must be a dynamic and innovative economy. On Monday, the Prime Minister set out the key elements of our modern industrial strategy—a strategy to raise productivity and wages in all parts of our country and to guarantee the brighter future we have promised to the next generation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will present a White Paper to the House in the next few days. This is not just an economic plan; it is a key part of our vision for a fairer Britain—a Britain where every one of our citizens can contribute to, and share in, the benefits of prosperity. The key to raising the wages of British workers is raising investment, both public and private, and we are investing in Britain’s future: half a trillion pounds since 2010; the biggest rail programme since Victorian times; the largest road building programme since the 1970s; the biggest increase in science and innovation funding in four decades; and the two largest infrastructure projects in Europe—Crossrail and HS2.

    When I took this job, I committed to making the battle to raise Britain’s productivity, and thus the nation’s pay, the central mission of the Treasury. Last autumn, I launched the national productivity investment fund to provide an additional £23 billion of investment over five years to upgrade Britain’s economic infrastructure for the 21st century. Today, I can announce that I will extend the fund for a further year and expand it to over £31 billion, meaning that public investment under this Government will, on average, be £25 billion higher per year in real terms than under the last Labour Government. We are allocating a further £2.3 billion for investment in R and D, and we will increase the main R and D tax credit to 12%, taking the first strides towards the ambition of the industrial strategy to drive up R and D investment across the economy to 2.4% of GDP.

    Britain is the world’s sixth largest economy. London is the No. 1 international financial services centre. We have some of the world’s best companies, and a commanding position in a raft of tech and digital industries that will form the backbone of the global economy of the future. Those who underestimate Britain do so at their peril, because we will harness that potential and turn it into the high-paid, high-productivity jobs of tomorrow. Others may choose to reject the future; we choose to embrace it. A new tech business is founded in Britain every hour, and I want that to be every half hour, so today we invest over £500 million in a range of initiatives from artificial intelligence to 5G and full-fibre broadband. We support regulatory innovation with a new regulators’ pioneer fund and a new geospatial data commission—[Interruption.] Opposition Members should listen. The new commission will develop a strategy for using the Government’s location data to support economic growth.

    To help our tech start-ups reach scale, we asked Sir Damon Buffini to review the availability of patient capital, and I am grateful to him. Today, we are publishing an action plan to unlock over £20 billion of new investment in UK knowledge-intensive, scale-up businesses, including through a new fund in the British Business Bank seeded with £2.5 billion of public money, by facilitating pension fund access to long-term investments, and by doubling enterprise investment scheme limits for knowledge-intensive companies while ensuring that EIS is not used as a shelter for low-risk capital preservation schemes. We stand ready to step in to replace European Investment Fund lending if necessary.

    There is perhaps no technology as symbolic of the revolution gathering pace around us as driverless vehicles—[Interruption.] Opposition Members surely do not want me to make that joke about the Labour party again. I know that Jeremy Clarkson does not like driverless vehicles, but there are many other good reasons to pursue the technology, so today we step up our support for it—sorry Jeremy, but this is definitely not the first time that you have been snubbed by Hammond and May. Our future vehicles will be driverless, but they will be electric first, and that is a change that needs to come as soon as possible for our planet. So we will establish a new £400 million charging infrastructure fund and invest an extra £100 million in plug-in car grants and £40 million in charging R and D. I can confirm today that we will clarify the law so that people who charge their electric vehicles at work will not face a benefit-in-kind charge from next year. The tax system can play an important role in protecting our environment.

    We owe it to our children that the air they breathe is clean. We published our air quality plan earlier this year, and we said then that we would fund it through taxes on new diesel cars. From April 2018, the first-year vehicle excise duty rate for diesel cars that do not meet the latest standards will go up by one band, and the existing diesel supplement in company car tax will increase by one percentage point. Drivers buying a new car will be able to avoid the charge as soon as manufacturers bring forward the next-generation cleaner diesels that we all want to see, and we will only apply the measures to cars. Before the headline writers start limbering up, let me be quite clear: no white van man or white van woman will be hit by these measures. The levy will fund a new £220 million clean air fund to provide support for the implementation of local air quality plans, improving the quality of the air in cities and towns up and down the UK.

    However, air quality is, sadly, not our only environmental challenge. Audiences across the country who have been glued to “Blue Planet II” have been starkly reminded of the problems of plastics pollution. The UK led the world on climate change agreements and is a pioneer in protecting marine environments. I want us now to become a world leader in tackling the scourge of the plastic that is littering our planet and our oceans. With my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I will investigate how the tax system and charges on single-use plastic items can reduce waste, because we cannot keep our promise to the next generation to build an economy fit for the future unless we ensure our planet has a future.

    Meeting the challenge of change head-on means giving our people the confidence to embrace it and the skills to reap the rewards from it, and we have a plan to do so. We are delivering 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020 thanks to our apprenticeship levy, and I will keep under review the flexibility that levy payers have to spend that money. We are introducing T-levels, and today I provide a further £20 million to support further education colleges to prepare for them. Knowledge of maths is key to the high-tech, cutting-edge jobs in our digital economy, but it is also useful in less glamorous roles such as frontline politics.

    So we will expand the Teaching for Mastery of Maths programme to a further 3,000 schools; we will provide £40 million to train maths teachers across the country; we will introduce a £600 maths premium for schools, for every additional pupil who takes A-level or core maths; and we will invite proposals for new maths schools across England, so that highly talented young mathematicians can release their potential, wherever they live and whatever their background. More maths for everyone—Mr Deputy Speaker, don’t let anyone say I don’t know how to show the nation a good time.

    Computer science is also at the heart of this revolution, so we will ensure that every secondary school pupil can study computing by tripling the number of trained computer science teachers to 12,000, and we will work with industry to create a new national centre for computing. But rapid technological change means that we also need to help people retrain during their working lives, ensuring that our workforce are equipped with the skills they will need for the workplace of the future. Today, my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary and I are launching an historic partnership, between the Government, the CBI and the TUC, to set the strategic direction for a national retraining scheme. Its first priority will be to boost digital skills and support expansion of the construction sector. To make a start immediately, we will invest £30 million in the development of digital skills distance learning courses, so that people can learn wherever they are and whenever they want.

    I am pleased to be able to accept the representation I have received from the TUC to continue to fund Unionlearn, which I recognise is a valuable part of our support for workplace learning. [Interruption.] Apparently the Opposition do not know what that is, Mr Deputy Speaker. I got an email from Len asking me especially, so I couldn’t say no, could I?

    Backing skills is key to unlocking growth nationally, but far too much of our economic strength is concentrated in our capital city. If we are truly to build an economy that is fit for the future, we have to get all parts of the UK firing on all cylinders. That is what our modern industrial strategy is all about. Today we back the northern powerhouse, the midlands engine and elected Mayors across the UK, with a new £1.7 billion Transforming Cities fund: half to be shared by the six areas with elected metro Mayors, to give them the firepower to deliver on local transport priorities, and the remainder to be open to competition by other cities in England.

    We are investing £300 million to ensure that HS2 infrastructure can accommodate future northern powerhouse and midlands engine rail improvements. I am also providing £30 million today to trial new solutions to improve mobile and digital connectivity on trains on the TransPennine route. We are developing a local industrial strategy with Manchester, and I am pleased to announce a second devolution deal with Andy Street in the west midlands. We have agreed a new devolution deal with North of the Tyne, and we will fund the replacement of the 40-year-old rolling stock on the Tyne and Wear metro, at a total investment of £337 million.

    We will invest £123 million in the Redcar steelworks site to support the ambitious plans of our new Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, and my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), who are leading the fight for prosperity in their area. We are piloting 100% business rates retention in London next year and continuing to work with Transport for London on the funding and financing of Crossrail 2. We will also make over £1 billion of discounted lending available to local authorities across the country to support high-value infrastructure projects—a Conservative Government giving power back to the people of Britain, and driving prosperity and greater fairness across our United Kingdom.

    The decisions taken in this Budget also mean £2 billion more for the Scottish Government, £1.2 billion more for the Welsh Government and over £650 million more for a Northern Ireland Executive. I can confirm today that progress is being made on city deals for Tay Cities and Stirling, and on a growth deal for Borderlands. I am getting used to the experience of having my ear bent by 13 Scottish Conservative colleagues, most recently on the issue of Scottish police and fire VAT. The Scottish National party knew the rules and knew the consequences of introducing these bodies, and ploughed ahead anyway. My Scottish Conservative colleagues have persuaded me that the Scottish people should not lose out just because of the obstinacy of the SNP Government, so we will legislate to allow VAT refunds from April 2018.

    In response to yet more representations from my hon. Friends from Scotland, aided and abetted by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), from November 2018 we will introduce transferable tax history for transfers of oil and gas fields in the North sea, an innovative tax policy that will encourage new entrants to bring fresh investment to a basin that still holds up to 20 billion barrels of oil.

    We will begin negotiations towards growth deals for north Wales and mid-Wales, and we will abolish tolls on the Severn bridge, as promised, by the end of next year. We will deliver on our commitment to review the effect of VAT and air passenger duty on tourism in Northern Ireland, reporting at next year’s Budget, and we will open negotiations for a Belfast city deal as part of our commitment to a comprehensive and ambitious set of city deals across Northern Ireland—a Conservative Government delivering for all parts of our United Kingdom.

    It is only by supporting our regions and nations, dealing with our debts and investing in skills and infrastructure for the long term that we can we build an economy fit for the future. But I recognise that many people are feeling pressure on their budgets now, and because we are all in politics to make people’s lives better, in the short term as well as the long term, we will take further measures in this Budget to help families and businesses where we can.

    The switch to universal credit is a long-overdue and necessary reform, replacing Labour’s broken system that discouraged people from working more than 16 hours a week and trapped 1.4 million on out-of-work benefits for nearly a decade. Universal credit delivers a modern welfare system where work always pays and people are supported to earn, but I recognise the genuine concerns on both sides of the House about the operational delivery of this benefit, and today we will act on those concerns.

    First, we will remove the seven-day waiting period applied at the beginning of a benefit claim so that entitlement to universal credit will start on the day of the claim. To provide greater support during the waiting period, we will change the advances system to ensure that any household that needs it can access a full month’s payment within five days of applying; we will make it possible to apply for an advance online, and we will extend the repayment period for advances from six months to 12 months; and any new universal credit claimant in receipt of housing benefit at the time of the claim will continue to receive that housing benefit for a further two weeks, making it easier for them to pay their rent. This is a £1½ billion package to address concerns about the delivery of the benefit. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will give further details in a statement to the House tomorrow.

    We also want to help low-income households in areas where rents have been rising fastest. In the long run, of course, the answer lies in increasing the amount of housing available, a theme I shall return to. In the meantime, the best way to help them is by increasing the rate of support in those areas where rents are least affordable. So we will increase targeted affordability funding by £125 million over the next two years, benefiting 140,000 people. We will always listen to genuine concerns and act where we can to help.

    Making work pay is core to the philosophy of this Government. That is why we introduced the national living wage in 2016. From April, it will rise by 4.4%, from £7.50 an hour to £7.83, handing full-time workers a further £600 pay increase and taking their total pay rise since its introduction to over £2,000 a year. We also accept the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations on national minimum wage rates, supporting our young people with the largest increase in youth rates in 10 years and delivering a pay rise for over 2 million minimum wage workers of all ages across the country.

    The facts are these: income inequality today is at its lowest level in 30 years; the top 1% are paying a larger share of income tax than at any time under the last Labour Government; the poorest 10% in Britain have seen their real incomes grow faster since 2010 than the richest 10%; and the proportion of full-time jobs that are low paid is at its lowest level for 20 years—a Conservative Government delivering a fairer Britain.

    As well as making work pay, we want families to keep more of the money they earn. When we came into office, the personal allowance stood at £6,475 a year. From April, I will increase the personal allowance to £11,850 and the higher rate threshold to £46,350, making progress towards our manifesto commitments, which I reiterate today. The typical basic-rate taxpayer will be £1,075 a year better off compared with 2010, and a full-time worker on the national living wage will take home more than £3,800 extra—this Conservative Government, delivering for Britain’s workers.

    I turn now to duties. The tobacco duty escalator will continue at inflation plus 2%, with an additional 1% duty on hand-rolling tobacco this year, and minimum excise duty on cigarettes will also rise. Excessive alcohol consumption by the most vulnerable people is all too often done through cheap, high-strength, low-quality products, especially so-called white ciders. I pay tribute to the campaign led by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on this issue. Following our recent consultation, we will legislate to increase duty on these products from 2019. But, recognising the pressure on household budgets, and backing our great British pubs, duties on other ciders, wines, spirits and beer will be frozen. This will mean that a bottle of whisky will be £1.15 less in 2018 than if we had continued with Labour’s plans, and a pint of beer 12p less. So, merry Christmas, Mr Deputy Speaker.

    The cost of travel is an important factor for families and businesses. From April 2019, I will again freeze short-haul air passenger duty rates, and I will also freeze long-haul economy rates, paid for by an increase on premium-class tickets and on private jets—sorry, Lewis. For those who do not stretch to a private jet, I can announce a new railcard for those aged 26 to 30, giving 4.5 million more young people a third off their rail fares. I will, once again, cancel the fuel duty rise for both petrol and diesel that is scheduled for April. Since 2010, we will have saved the average car driver £850 and the average van driver over £2,100, compared with Labour’s escalator plans. Fuel duty has now been frozen for the longest period in 40 years, at a total cost to the Exchequer of £46 billion since 2010.

    Our NHS is one of our great institutions: an essential part of what we are as a nation and a source of pride the length and breadth of the country. Its values are the values of the British people, and we will always back it. Dedicated NHS staff are handling the challenges of an ageing population and rapidly advancing technology with skill and commitment, and we salute them. Mr Deputy Speaker, although you would not think so to listen to the Leader of the Opposition as he regularly talks down the achievements of the NHS, the number of patients being treated is at record levels, cancer survival rates are at their highest ever level, 17 million people are now able to access GP appointments in the evenings and at weekends, and public satisfaction among hospital in-patients is at its highest level in more than 20 years.

    It is central to this Government’s vision that everyone has access to the NHS, free at the point of need. That is why we endorsed and funded the NHS’s five-year forward view in 2014. But even with this additional funding, we acknowledge that the service remains under pressure, and today we respond. First, we will deliver an additional £10 billion package of capital investment in frontline services over the course of this Parliament to support the sustainability and transformation plans that will make our NHS more resilient—investing for an NHS fit for the future. But we also recognise that the NHS is under pressure right now. I am therefore exceptionally, and outside the spending review process, making an additional commitment of resource funding of £2.8 billion to the NHS in England: £350 million immediately, to allow trusts to plan for this winter, and £1.6 billion in 2018-19, with the balance in 2019-20, taking the extra resource into the NHS next year to £3.75 billion in total, meaning that our NHS will receive a £7.5 billion increase to its resource budget over this year and next.

    Our nation’s nurses provide invaluable support to us all in our time of greatest need and deserve our deepest gratitude for their tireless efforts. My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary has already begun discussions with health unions on pay structure modernisation for “Agenda for Change” staff, to improve recruitment and retention. He will submit evidence to the independent pay review body in due course, but I want to assure NHS staff and patients, and Members of this House, that if the Health Secretary’s talks bear fruit, I will protect patient services by providing additional funding for such a settlement.

    Just as our public services must be fit for the future, so too must our tax system. It must remain competitive to attract the brightest and the best to establish and grow the businesses of the future. It must raise the revenue we need to fund our public services and it must be robust against abuse so that it is fair to all. We have heard a lot of talk recently from the Opposition about what they would do to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion, but the truth is that they did not. It is this Government who have clamped down on avoidance and evasion; this Government who have seen the tax gap cut by a quarter since 2010, to a record low; and this Government who have raked in an extra £160 billion over seven years for our public services by collecting the taxes that are due. So I am going to take no lectures, but I will take action. This Budget continues the work of the last seven years, with a package of measures that is forecast to raise £4.8 billion by 2022-23—doing the job that Labour failed to do for 13 years in office.

    Our long-term phased reduction of corporation tax has generated investment and jobs and raised £20 billion extra for our public services. We are committed to maintaining Britain’s competitive corporation tax rates, but there is a case now for removing the anomaly of the indexation allowance for capital gains, bringing the corporate tax system into line with the personal capital gains tax system.

    I will therefore freeze this allowance so that companies receive relief for inflation up to January 2018, but not thereafter.

    I am grateful to the Office of Tax Simplification for its recent report on the VAT registration threshold. At £85,000, the UK’s VAT threshold is by far the highest in the OECD. By contrast, in Germany it is just £15,600. I note the OTS conclusion that it distorts competition and disincentivises business growth. I also note the concerns of the Federation of Small Businesses about the cliff edge of the threshold. But such a high threshold also has the benefit of keeping the majority of small businesses out of VAT altogether, so I am not minded to reduce the threshold, but I will consult on whether its design could better incentivise growth, and in the meantime we will maintain it at its current level of £85,000 for the next two years.

    We cannot build an economy fit for the future without supporting its backbone: our 5.5 million small businesses, which are responsible between them for nearly half of our private sector jobs. They give our economy its extraordinary vibrancy and resilience, but I recognise that many are feeling under pressure right now. I know what hard work it is to get a business off the ground, to get it to grow, so today I want to do what we can to ease that pressure.

    Business rates represent a high fixed cost for small businesses. At Budget 2016 we introduced a package of business rate relief worth almost £9 billion, with a further £435 million in the spring Budget. Today I go further. We have listened to concerns about the potential costs of the annual uprating of business rates in April next year, and today I will accept the representation of the British Chambers of Commerce, CBI and other business organisations and bring forward the planned switch from RPI to CPI by two years, to April 2018—a move worth £2.3 billion to businesses over the next five years.

    I have also listened to businesses affected by the so-called staircase tax. We will change the law to ensure that where a business has been impacted by the Supreme Court ruling, it can have its original bill reinstated, if it chooses, and backdated. I hope that I can expect cross-party backing to speed that measure through Parliament.

    There are three simple steps to solve the staircase tax—[Interruption.] What do they expect? It’s the tax section. To support the thousands of small pubs that are at the heart of so many of our communities, we will extend the £1,000 discount for pubs with a rateable value of less than £100,000 for one more year, to March 2019.

    And I have heard the concerns about the five-yearly revaluation system. Shorter revaluation periods will reduce the size of changes in valuations, so I can announce today that after the next revaluation, future revaluations will take place every three years—this Conservative Government listening to small business.

    There is a wider concern across this House and in the business community about the tax system in the digital age. Along with the innovation and growth that it brings, digitalisation poses challenges for the sustainability and fairness of our tax system. But this challenge can only be properly solved on an international basis, and the UK is leading the charge in the OECD and the G20 to find solutions.

    Today we publish a position paper on the tax challenge posed by the digital economy, setting out our emerging thinking about potential solutions. But in the meantime, we will take what action we can. Multinational digital businesses pay billions of pounds in royalties to jurisdictions where they are not taxed, and some of these royalties relate to UK sales. So from April 2019, and in accordance with our international obligations, we will apply income tax to royalties relating to UK sales when those royalties are paid to a low-tax jurisdiction, even if they do not fall to be taxed in the UK under our current rules. That will raise about £200 million a year. It does not solve the problem, but it does send a signal of our determination and we will continue work in the international arena to find a sustainable and fair long-term solution that properly taxes the digital businesses that operate in our cyber-space.

    Following representations from a number of my hon. Friends, we are also taking further action to address online VAT fraud, which costs the taxpayer £1.2 billion per year, by making all online marketplaces jointly liable with their sellers for VAT, ensuring that sellers operating through them pay the right amount of VAT, just as we would expect traditional retailers to do.

    I want to turn to the challenge of the housing market, but before I do so I want to touch on the aftermath of the appalling events at Grenfell Tower. We have provided financial support for the victims of this terrible tragedy, and today I can announce we will provide Kensington and Chelsea Council with a further £28 million for mental health and counselling services, regeneration support for the surrounding areas and to provide a new community space for local residents.

    This tragedy should never have happened, and we must ensure that nothing like it ever happens again. All local authorities and housing associations must carry out any identified necessary safety works as soon as possible. If any local authority cannot access funding to pay for essential fire safety work, they should contact us immediately. I have said before, and I will say it again today: we will not allow financial constraints to get in the way of any essential fire safety work.

    I want to address the issue of empty properties. It cannot be right to leave property empty when so many are desperate for a place to live, so we will legislate to give local authorities the power to charge a 100% council tax premium on empty properties. We will also launch a consultation on barriers to longer tenancies in the private rented sector and how we might encourage landlords to offer them to those tenants who want the extra security.

    I also want to say something about rough sleeping. It is unacceptable that in 21st-century Britain there are people sleeping on the streets, so we will invest today £28 million in three new Housing First pilots in the west midlands, Manchester and Liverpool, and we will establish a homelessness taskforce as part of our commitment to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it by 2027.

    I thank the many colleagues who submitted ideas on how to tackle the challenge of the housing market, including my hon. Friends the Members for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) and for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) in particular. By continuing to invest in Britain’s infrastructure, skills and research and development, we will ensure the recovery in productivity growth that is the key to delivering our vision of a stronger, fairer, more balanced economy, and the assurance to the next generation of their economic security.

    But however successful we are in that endeavour, there is one area where young people today will, rightly, feel concern about their future prospects, and that is in the housing market. House prices are increasingly out of reach for many. It takes too long to save for a deposit, and rents absorb too high a portion of monthly income, so the number of 25 to 34-year-olds owning their own home has dropped from 59% to just 38% over the last 13 years. Put simply, successive Governments, over decades, have failed to build enough homes to deliver the home-owning dream that this country has always been proud of, or indeed to meet the needs of those who rent.

    In Manchester a few weeks ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a pledge to Britain’s younger generation that she would dedicate her premiership to fixing this problem, and today we take the next steps to delivering on that pledge. By choosing to build we send a message to the next generation that getting on the housing ladder is not just a dream of your parents’ past, but a reality for your future.

    We have made a start with schemes such as Help to Buy, which has helped over 320,000 people buy a home. We have increased the supply of homes by more than 1.1 million since 2010, including nearly 350,000 affordable homes. House building stands at its highest level since the crash, with the latest figures showing that over 217,000 net additional homes were added to the stock last year. That is a remarkable achievement, but we need to do better still if we are to see affordability improve.

    This is a complex challenge, and there is no single magic bullet. If we do not increase the supply of land for new homes, more money will simply inflate prices and make matters worse. If we do not do more to support the growth of the SME house building sector that was all but wiped out by Labour’s great recession, we will remain dependent on the major national house builders that dominate the industry. If we do not train the construction workers of tomorrow, we may generate planning permissions but we will not turn them into homes. Solving this challenge will require money, it will require planning reform and it will require intervention. So today we set out an ambitious plan to tackle the housing challenge.

    Over the next five years, we will commit a total of at least £44 billion of capital funding, loans and guarantees to support our housing market, to boost the supply of skills, resources and building land, and to create the financial incentives necessary to deliver 300,000 net additional homes a year on average by the mid-2020s—the biggest annual increase in housing supply since 1970; new money for the home builders fund to get SME housebuilders building again; a £630 million small sites fund to unstick the delivery of 40,000 homes; a further £2.7 billion to more than double the housing infrastructure fund; £400 million more for estate regeneration; a £1.1 billion fund to unlock strategic sites, including new settlements and urban regeneration schemes; a lifting of HRA caps for councils in high demand areas, to get them building again; and £8 billion of new financial guarantees to support private house building and the purpose-built private rented sector. And because we need a workforce to build these new homes, we are providing an additional £34 million to develop construction skills across the country.

    Solving the housing challenge takes more than money—it takes planning reform. We will focus on the urban areas where people want to live and where most jobs are created, making best use of our urban land and continuing the strong protection of our green belt, in particular building high quality, high density homes in city centres and around major transport hubs. And to put the needs of our young people first, we will ensure that councils in high demand areas permit more homes for local first-time buyers and affordable renters.

    My right hon. Friend the Communities Secretary will set out more detail in a statement to the House in due course. However, one thing is very clear: there is a significant gap between the number of planning permissions granted and the number of homes built. In London alone, there are 270,000 residential planning permissions unbuilt. We need to understand why. So I am establishing an urgent review to look at the gap between planning permissions and housing starts. It will be chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and will deliver an interim report in time for the spring statement next year. And if that report finds that vitally needed land is being withheld from the market for commercial, rather than technical, reasons, we will intervene to change the incentives to ensure that such land is brought forward for development, using direct intervention compulsory purchase powers as necessary.

    Mr Deputy Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that we will fix this problem, and no one should doubt the Government’s determination to do so. But the solution will not deliver itself. Local authorities will need help and support. Developers will need encouragement and persuasion. Infrastructure to facilitate higher-density development must be funded and delivered. So the Homes and Communities Agency will expand to become Homes England, bringing together money, expertise and planning and compulsory purchase powers, with a clear remit to facilitate delivery of sufficient new homes, where they are most needed, to deliver a sustained improvement in housing affordability.

    But Mr Deputy Speaker, the battle to achieve and sustain affordability will be a long-term one, so we also need to look beyond this Parliament, to long-term measures. We will use new town development corporations to kick-start five new locally agreed garden towns in areas of demand pressure, delivered through public-private partnerships and designed to attract long-term capital investment from around the world.

    Last week, the National Infrastructure Commission published their report on the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford corridor. Today we back their vision and commit to building up to 1 million homes by 2050, completing the road and rail infrastructure to support them. And as a down-payment on this plan, we have agreed an ambitious housing deal with Oxfordshire to deliver 100,000 homes by 2031. We are capitalising on the global reputations of our two most famous universities and Britain’s biggest new town to create a dynamic new growth corridor for the 21st century.

    Mr Deputy Speaker, this is our plan to deliver on the pledge we have made to the next generation: that the dream of home ownership will become a reality in this country once again. But I also want to take action today to help young people who are saving to own a home. One of the biggest challenges facing young first-time buyers is the cash required up front. We have put £10 billion more money into Help to Buy: Equity Loan to help those saving for a deposit, but I want to do more still. I have received representations for a temporary stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers, but this would only help those who are ready to purchase now and would offer nothing for the many who will need to save for years. So with effect from today, for all first-time-buyer purchases up to £300,000, I am abolishing stamp duty altogether.

    Hon. Members

    More!

    Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)

    Order. If you want more, you are going to have to let the Chancellor finish.

    Mr Hammond

    Mr Deputy Speaker, to ensure that this relief also helps first-time buyers in very high price areas like London, it will also be available on the first £300,000 of the purchase price of properties up to £500,000, meaning an effective reduction of £5,000. That is a stamp duty cut for 95% for all first-time buyers who pay stamp duty and no stamp duty at all for 80% of first-time buyers from today. When we say we will revive the home-owning dream in Britain, we mean it. We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge, but today we have made a substantial down-payment.

    Mr Deputy Speaker, one of the things that I love most about this country is its sense of opportunity. I have always felt it, and I want young people growing up today to have that same sense of boundless opportunity. In this Budget, I have set out a vision for Britain’s future and a plan for delivering it: by getting our debt down, by supporting British families and businesses, by investing in the technologies and the skills of the future and by creating the homes and the infrastructure that our country needs.

    We are at a turning point in our history, and we resolve to look forwards, not backwards—to build on the strengths of the British economy, to embrace change not hide from it, to seize the opportunities ahead of us and, together, to build a Britain fit for the future. I commend this statement to the House.

  • Theresa May – 2017 Statement on Robert Mugabe’s Resignation

    Below is the text of the statement issued by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, on 21 November 2017.

    The resignation of Robert Mugabe provides Zimbabwe with an opportunity to forge a new path free of the oppression that characterised his rule. In recent days we have seen the desire of the Zimbabwean people for free and fair elections and the opportunity to rebuild the country’s economy under a legitimate government.

    As Zimbabwe’s oldest friend we will do all we can to support this, working with our international and regional partners to help the country achieve the brighter future it so deserves.

  • Mark Field – 2017 Speech at the Asian-European Meeting

    Below is the text of the speech made by Mark Field, Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, at the Asian-European Meeting held in Myanmar on 20 November 2017.

    Introduction

    It is an honour to represent the UK at this ASEM Foreign Ministers’ meeting. It is a particular pleasure to see a democratically-elected leader of Myanmar in the Chair.

    Myanmar’s path towards peace and democracy has been long and difficult. Major challenges remain. The UK is proud to have been a consistent advocate for human rights and democracy in Myanmar over many years. We continue to work with the civilian government to promote peace, sustainable development and fundamental rights for all communities in Myanmar.

    We are particularly grateful to you, Madam Chair, for your willingness to address the issue of Rakhine in the margins of this meeting. We welcome your inclusive vision for Rakhine and commitment to the right of return for refugees.

    I would also like to pay tribute to the generosity of Bangladesh for taking in more than 610,000 refugees over the past 3 months – a huge burden for any country. The UK has given some £47 million in humanitarian support and we stand ready, along with others here, I trust, to contribute further.

    UK-Asia

    The UK’s links with Asia run deep. They include some of our closest commercial, political and people-to-people links. As we prepare to leave the European Union, our commitment to ASEM and to Asia will endure.

    Rules-based System

    ASEM brings together countries with a deep commitment to the rules-based international system. Peace and sustainable development in both our regions depend on that system. So I want to highlight two threats to the rules-based system, and four global challenges that can only be addressed through strengthening that system.

    North Korea

    As many have mentioned, the first regional issue is the threat posed by North Korea‘s reckless nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The unanimous Security Council vote to strengthen sanctions sent the strongest possible signal of international resolve.

    We all have a duty to enforce UN sanctions urgently and rigorously.

    South China Sea

    The second regional issue concerns the South China Sea. We are committed to a Rules-Based Maritime order. European states have a legitimate interest in peace, stability and security even as far away as the South China Sea. The UK’s position remains that all states must respect international law, as reflected in UNCLOS, and seek to settle disputes peacefully, without coercion or the threat of force.

    Global Challenges

    Turning to the global challenges:

    The UK has shown that it is possible to cut emissions while pursuing economic growth. And I hope others will be able to follow that lead. The Illegal Wildlife Trade not only harms biodiversity but also fosters corruption and undermines the rule of law. I congratulate China on its domestic ivory ban, and Vietnam for hosting the 2016 conference. London hosts the next conference on this issue in 2018. I urge ASEM to support work to combat this criminal trade.

    Finally, digital connectivity can and will help enhance the links between Asia and Europe. The internet is increasingly a principal driver of our prosperity and social well-being. To ensure this continues, we must work together to tackle cyber-crime, protect online freedoms and abide by the norms of responsible state behaviour. Innovation, R&D will also ensure cyber security for us all.

  • Alistair Burt – 2017 Speech on Yemen

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alistair Burt, the Minister of State for International Development and Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, in the House of Commons on 20 November 2017.

    With permission, Mr Speaker I would like to make a statement to the House on the humanitarian and political situation in Yemen and the implications of the conflict for regional security.

    Her Majesty’s Government remains deeply concerned by the humanitarian situation in Yemen and the impact recent restrictions are having on what was already the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and largest ever cholera outbreak.

    We recognise the risk of a severe deterioration of the humanitarian situation, if restrictions are not quickly removed and call on all parties to ensure immediate access for commercial and humanitarian supplies through all Yemen’s land, air and sea ports.

    But we should be clear about the reality of the conflict in Yemen. The Saudi-led Coalition launched a military intervention after a rebel insurgency took the capital by force and overthrew the legitimate Government of Yemen as recognised by the UN Security Council. Ungoverned spaces in Yemen are being used by non-state actors and terrorist groups to launch attacks against regional countries, international shipping lanes and the Yemeni people.

    As my Rt Hon friend the Foreign Secretary has made clear, we strongly condemn the attempted missile attack against Riyadh on 4 November. This attack, which has been claimed by the Houthis, deliberately targeted a civilian area and was intercepted over an international airport.

    The United Kingdom remains committed to supporting Saudi Arabia to address its legitimate security needs.

    We are therefore deeply concerned by reports that Iran has provided the Houthis with ballistic missiles. This is contrary to the arms embargo established by UN Security Council Resolution 2216 and serves to threaten regional security and prolong the conflict.

    I understand that a UN team is currently visiting Riyadh to investigate these reports. It is essential that the UN conducts a thorough investigation. The UK stands ready to share its expertise to support this process.

    But Mr Speaker, we recognise that those who suffer most from this conflict are the people of Yemen.

    We understand why the Saudi-led Coalition felt obliged to temporarily close Yemen’s ports and airports in order to strengthen enforcement of the UN mandated arms embargo. It is critical that international efforts to disrupt illicit weapons flows are strengthened.

    At the same time, it is vital that commercial and humanitarian supplies of food, fuel and medicine are able to reach vulnerable Yemeni people, particularly in the north – where 70% of those in need live.

    Even before the current restrictions, 21 million were already in need of humanitarian assistance and 7 million were only a single step away from famine. 90% of food in Yemen is imported and three quarters of that comes via the ports of Hodeidah and Salif. No other ports in Yemen have the capacity to make up that shortfall.

    Our NGO partners in Yemen are already reporting that water and sewerage systems in major cities have stopped operating because of a lack of fuel. This means that millions no longer have access to clean water and sanitation, in a country already suffering from the worst cholera outbreak in modern times.

    The current restrictions on access for both commercial and humanitarian shipments risk making an already dire situation immeasurably worse for the Yemeni people. We have heard the UN’s stark warnings about the risk of famine.

    We call on all parties to ensure immediate access for commercial and humanitarian supplies to avert the threat of starvation and disease faced by millions of civilians.

    We also call for the immediate reopening of Hodeidah port and the resumption of UN flights into Sana’a and Aden airports, as the Foreign Office statement on 15 November made clear. Restrictions on humanitarian flights are causing problems for humanitarian workers, including British nationals, who wish to enter or exit the country.

    We have been urgently and proactively seeking a resolution of this situation. Our Ambassador in Riyadh has been in frequent contact with the Saudi Foreign Minister. My Rt Hon friend the Foreign Secretary has discussed the situation in Yemen with the Crown Prince, with whom we have emphasised the urgency of addressing the worsening humanitarian crisis. My Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has spoken to both the UN Secretary-General and the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs since about the situation in Yemen since her appointment on 9 November.

    We are also continuing to work closely with other regional and international partners, including the UN. On 18 November, my Rt Hon friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to the UN Secretary-General. Central to this discussion was how the security concerns of Saudi Arabia can be addressed to enable these restrictions to be lifted. It is vitally important that the UN and Saudi Arabia enter a meaningful and constructive dialogue.

    More broadly, we will continue to support the people of Yemen through the provision of lifesaving humanitarian supplies. The UK is the fourth largest humanitarian donor to Yemen, and the second largest to the UN appeal – committing £155 million to Yemen for 2017/18. UKaid has already provided food to almost two million people and clean water to over one million more.

    Mr Speaker, the only way to bring long-term stability to Yemen is through a political solution. That is why peace talks remain the top priority. The Houthis must abandon pre-conditions and engage with the UN Special Envoy’s proposals.

    The UK has played, and continues to play, a leading role in diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution. This includes bringing together key international actors – including the US, Saudi, Emirati and Omani allies – through the Quad and Quint process. We intend to convene another such meeting shortly. It is vital that we work together to refocus the political track.

    The UK will also continue to play a leading role on Yemen through the UN. In June, we proposed and supported the UN Security Council Presidential Statement which expressed deep concern about the humanitarian situation in Yemen. The statement called for an end to the fighting, a return to UN-led peace talks and stressed the importance of unhindered humanitarian access. It is vital that the words of the text are converted into action. The international community’s unified and clear demands must be respected.

    I commend this statement to the House.

  • Sajid Javid – 2017 Speech to County Councils Network Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to the County Councils Network Conference on 20 November 2017.

    Good afternoon everyone, many thanks to Paul [Carter] for that kind introduction.

    And thank you also for everything you’ve done as Chairman of the CCN.

    You’ve shown tireless leadership and endless enthusiasm for the task, and it has been a real pleasure working with you.

    The last time I spoke at a major local government conference, it was the LGA’s one back in the summer.

    And I think it’s fair to say the reception was a little mixed.

    Views were diverse.

    Some said it went down like a bucket of cold sick.

    Others disagreed – they liked it even less!

    I know you’ve had a great day today.

    I’ve been looking at the agenda and it looks like a brilliant programme.

    I’m sorry I’m not able to join you for this evening’s festivities.

    Sadly I’ve got to rush back for votes, which is a shame as I see Gyles Brandreth is tonight’s after-dinner speaker.

    He’s certainly worth sticking around for.

    I’m sure you all know that Gyles used to be a Conservative MP, from 1992 to 1997.

    A very different time, when a minority government was beset with sleaze allegations and facing divisions over Europe…

    Less well-known is the fact that, in 1978, Gyles was European Champion at the board game Monopoly.

    True story.

    So he certainly knows how to get houses built.

    And in central London too, not on the green belt!

    It’s a pleasure to be here in lovely Marlow, on the edge of the Chiltern Hills.

    It’s a very historic town.

    Mary Shelly lived just down the road when she was writing Frankenstein.

    The story of a well-meaning individual who wants to do the right thing but ends up unleashing a monster.

    Kind of like me with that LGA speech, actually…

    With so much focus on the outcome of June’s General Election, a lot of people seem to have forgotten about May’s county polls.

    Well, a lot of people outside this room, anyway!

    Congratulations to everyone here who got elected or re-elected.

    Paul, for example, he won 66% of the votes in his ward and leads a group that holds more than 80% of the seats in Kent.

    80%!

    I think it’s fair to say us Conservative MPs are a little envious!

    I know it’s not easy to ask your fellow residents to judge you, put their faith in you, vote for you.

    I’ve done it 3 times myself now and it’s certainly a humbling experience.

    But a great many men and women did just that back in May, with thousands winning the backing of their local communities and proudly taking their seats on county councils.

    In the weeks before the vote I travelled the whole country, talking with and listening to county councillors, candidates, officials and residents and hearing about what really mattered to them.

    I often talk about councillors as being on the frontline of democracy and my tour of the counties really reinforced that.

    What you do matters.

    The decisions you make matter.

    The people you serve rely on you to get things right. Time and again – you deliver for them.

    You don’t do it for fame or riches.

    You certainly don’t do it for an easy life.

    You do it because you want to make a difference.

    Because you want to make life better for the people of your counties.

    You represent the very best aspects of public service and of British life.

    And it’s an honour, an absolute honour, to represent you as Secretary of State.

    The topics being debated here today and tomorrow show just how important our county councils are.

    Social care, children’s services, transport, jobs and more.

    These are the building blocks of daily life, relied on by millions of people.

    And of course the thread that runs through all of them is the thread that runs through all of politics and government.

    The thread alluded to by my Labour Shadow just a few minutes ago.

    Funding.

    I know that I could stand here all night and make any number of announcements and pronouncements and promises…

    …and you’d all nod along politely and then say “that’s great, Saj, now show me the money”.

    With the Budget happening on Wednesday and the local government finance settlement to come, it wouldn’t be right for me to get into specifics right now.

    But, whatever the Budget brings, whatever the finance settlement brings, I remain totally committed to speaking up for the needs of local government.

    Twelve months ago I stood in front of you and promised to fight for county councils in the year ahead.

    To speak for you, lobby for you and be an advocate for you at the Cabinet table and beyond.

    Twelve months on, that’s a promise I’ve worked hard to keep.

    Over the past year, Marcus Jones and I have never stopped fighting to secure finance agreements that work for everyone.

    For Whitehall, for the counties, and above all for the people we all serve.

    That’s why we announced an extension of the business rates retention pilots.

    That’s why we secured sizeable amounts of fresh funding for adult social care and just last week announced plans for a new green paper.

    And that’s why we’re continuing to push ahead with our work on Fair Funding.

    I recognise this is still a difficult financial climate. I know the pressures that you face, particularly with respect to adult and children’s social care.

    I’m also not naïve enough to think there’s a single magic bullet that will instantly solve all of the issues you face.

    I’d advise you to raise a sceptical eyebrow at anyone who claims to have one.

    I’m interested in the long-term, not the quick fix.

    Sustainable change, not an easy win.

    And that’s why I will keep working with you to better understand these challenges so I can continue to fight your corner.

    With many of your councils dating back to Victorian times, it’s easy to characterise counties as the dusty old relatives of the local government world…

    …especially when compared with the shiny new unitaries, combined authorities and so on.

    But that stereotype couldn’t be more wrong.

    Because this is an exciting time for anyone involved with county councils.

    A time of new opportunities, new roles, new ways to better serve the people you represent.

    I know that in some corners of local government there’s still this outdated attitude that says councils should stay in their lane.

    “We’re responsible for this, the districts are responsible for that and never the twain shall meet”.

    You don’t need me to tell you that such thinking is woefully out of date.

    The future – not to mention the present – is all about joined-up thinking, working together strategically to get things done.

    Look at housing, the single biggest challenge of our age.

    Most counties are not planning authorities, directly responsible for delivering homes.

    But you’re all responsible for transport.

    For schools.

    For roads.

    For creating an environment in which homes can be built, in which communities can be created.

    I know that tomorrow you’re going to hear from Ed Lister about the role of counties in getting homes built.

    And it’s great that you’re discussing it, because the only way we will build the homes this country needs is if we all roll up our sleeves and do our bit.

    There are also opportunities for closer working across county lines.

    There was a time when most peoples’ lives extended no further than a day’s walk from their home, but such days are far behind us.

    In 21st century Britain, people are mobile.

    Their work is mobile, their lives are mobile.

    They are not constrained by lines on a map, and nor should you be.

    No man is an island and – with a handful of literal exceptions – no council is either.

    All local authorities are intrinsically linked with their neighbours on issues such as transport, housing and the economy…

    …even the Isle of Wight with its links to Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton.

    Earlier this month I was in China, where interest in the Northern Powerhouse and Midlands Engine was pronounced because potential investors want to look at opportunities on a regional level, not just individual towns, cities and counties.

    That’s why strategic co-operation between councils has never been so important.

    Sometimes that will be an informal process, sometimes more official.

    We already see a great many Local Enterprise Partnerships crossing local authority lines, recognising the flows of people and money in the modern economy and the need for strategic decision-making.

    And of course combined authorities, with a directly elected mayor, are already delivering results right across the country.

    Up to now relatively few county councils have been involved in devolution deals.

    Devolution has been seen as something for the big cities, the metropolitan centres.

    This government remains absolutely committed to the devolution agenda, but I see no reason why its benefits should be limited to the cities.

    That’s particularly important given our Industrial Strategy, which is built around the goal of sharing the benefits of growth right across the country – north and south, urban and rural, cities and counties.

    Devolution and localism, for me, is all about making decisions at the most appropriate level.

    Some things, matters of national importance, will always be best decided at Westminster.

    But for everything else, there are all kinds of opportunities to redistribute power in all kinds of ways.

    Just look at Transport for the North, set to become a statutory body in the spring, and recognising the benefits of looking at transport on a regional level.

    What does this mean for counties?

    Well, if you have an idea for making local government work better, one that serves the interests of local people, then please come and tell me about it.

    If local people want it, if local businesses want it, I’ll do what I can to help you make it happen.

    And that could include non-mayoral combined authorities in, for example, rural areas where a single figurehead isn’t necessarily suitable.

    To help with that process we’re looking at how to design a devolution framework.

    As promised in our election manifesto it will be a common set of guidelines.

    Rules that everyone plays by, so that everyone involved in the process…

    …local authorities, businesses, residents…

    …knows where they stand and what is expected of them.

    Work is still in the early stages – and I’d welcome your support in shaping the final product.

    But I want a framework that, above all else, provides clarity and consistency about what a successful devolution agreement looks like.

    What standards will need to be met, what outcomes will need delivered, what red lines there are for the whole process.

    Expectations about leadership, scope and levels of local support.

    With a clear position on how devolution negotiations should proceed, authorities at all levels will much better placed to develop and put forward proposals that suit the unique needs of their residents and businesses.

    It will help ensure that the right decisions are made at the right levels, so that local people get the services they deserve.

    Of course, devolution and combined authorities aren’t the only changes that counties are talking about right now.

    I’ve now received two proposals setting out competing visions for the future of Buckinghamshire – whether that should be as one unitary or two.

    These show councils at their best – ambitious, innovative, and ready to come forward with exciting ideas for the future.

    We’re now going through both sets of plans very closely and will be making an announcement on next steps as soon as we can.

    And, earlier this month, I announced that I’m minded to support the plan for a pair of unitary authorities in Dorset.

    I know that’s a decision that was welcomed by the CCN, it’s great to be on the same page as you.

    But, more importantly for me, it’s a decision that was also supported by two-thirds of Dorset residents.

    By the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership.

    By the vast majority of local businesses.

    By 6 of the 9 local councils.

    By most of the county’s MPs.

    I’ve always been clear that any change to council structures should not be dreamed up or imposed by Whitehall, but led by local councils and local people.

    And that’s exactly what we’ve seen in Dorset.

    Yes, some people disagree with the move.

    That’s what happens in a democracy.

    And that’s why, when I announced that I was minded to support the change, I made it very clear that further steps are needed to try to secure local consent before a final decision is made.

    Last year I told you that I wasn’t going to force all of you to go unitary.

    That’s still very much the case.

    But if councils want to come to me with proposals that will improve local government, improve public services, and give better value to local taxpayers…

    My door is always open.

    And if, as in Dorset, those plans are built on a foundation of local support, it will make any decision I have to make a great deal easier!

    Speaking of councils coming to me with ideas, let me take this opportunity to thank the CCN and Respublica for the fascinating report you’ve just published.

    At a time when opportunities and challenges are plenty, it’s great to see you proactively looking at innovative ways of dealing with them.

    In Budget week in particular, it’s very easy for politicians who aren’t in power to offer blank cheques they know will never be cashed and empty promises they know will never be kept.

    Actually coming up with workable, practical ideas is much harder.

    So this report is a welcome addition to the debate.

    It certainly provides food for thought, and my team and I will be looking at it closely.

    And I’ll also be asking Paul to sign a copy so I can give it to Marcus Jones in the Secret Santa next month!

    All ministers have annual fixtures in their speaking diaries – the CCN conference is one such example.

    But, because I’ve run 3 departments in less than 4 years, this conference today is actually the first time I’ve managed to speak an annual event 2 years in a row!

    I think it’s fitting that the CCN is where I break that particular duck.

    Because local government is very, very important to me.

    I talk about housing a lot, everyone knows it’s my number one priority, but that doesn’t mean I’m not full of admiration for what you do.

    So it’s great that I’m able to come back year after year to build relationships, reflect on progress, and work together on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

    That’s why, rather than talking at you for an hour, I’m going to give over the rest of this slot to Q&A.

    I want to hear your views, your concerns, your ideas.

    I want a conversation with local government, not a lecture.

    County councils have roots that go back through the centuries.

    They are a significant part of this country’s history.

    They play a vital role in its present.

    And, when I look around this room, I see no shortage of ambition for the future.

    I’m looking forward to working with all of you to turn that ambition into results.

    Thank you.

  • Damian Green – 2004 Speech on British Hauliers

    Below is the text of the speech made by Damian Green to the Road Haulage Association’s Spring Conference in Portugal on 21 May 2004.

    “I was struck in my early weeks in this job that, for politicians, too often transport consists entirely of the railways, when rail provides only 6% of the journeys taken, and for most people road transport is much more important in their lives. All politicians are obsessed by polls, and it is instructive that MORI, in their regular polls about public attitudes to the parties in relation to the big permanent political issues, only ask about the parties’ policies towards public transport—no mention of roads and motoring. So I want to take a balanced and unemotional approach to transport planning.

    Having said which, of course rail and bus policies are vital. If we don’t get the railways right, for freight as well as passengers, then increasing numbers of people will take to their cars, or their trucks, in despair, adding to the congestion we all suffer from. John Prescott notoriously said “I will have failed if in five years time there are not fewer journeys by car.” Well traffic is up 7%, and motorway congestion is up 250%. So you can’t make our roads more effective without making the railways more effective as well.

    So with that as the background I want to set out three principles which will act the basis for our policies.

    First, Governments should give people genuine choice about the mode of transport they choose.

    Secondly, Long-term transport success will come from steady and predictable investment policies, sheltered from incessant political interference.

    Thirdly, The necessary investment levels will require private sector money, and this is as important for roads as it is for railways.

    Those are our guiding principles. What do they mean in policy terms? Indeed, what do they mean for your industry and its reliance on the road network. My basic pitch is that the Government should call off its war on the motorist—not least because making driving miserable for private motorists also inevitably means making it miserable for commercial motorists—including all of your drivers.

    We have already made some proposals, including an audit of the positioning of speed cameras to make it clear that every one is contributing to road safety and not just acting as a silent tax collector for the Chancellor. We believe speed limits should be revisited, with higher maximum speeds possible on motorways and lower speeds necessary on some other roads.

    All of these ideas are designed to make our roads flow more freely, so that no one is holding up your trucks unnecessarily, and that your trucks are not holding up other drivers unnecessarily.

    Our second principle, recommending steady investment, is designed to avoid the stop-start nature of big transport investment in Britain. You will all have seen the full page adverts in papers this week arguing for more and better transport investment—the RHA was one of the bodies placing them. They laid particular emphasis on the most serious pinch points: the M1, the M4 near London, the M6 north of Birmingham, the M62 and the M25. And it is very often schemes to relieve these bottlenecks that take an age to come to fruition. There will always be planning issues, and genuine environmental issues, which cause delays. But what is most frustrating is that such schemes are often delayed further after we have gone through all the planning delays, because the Government finances of the day don’t permit large-scale blocks of extra expenditure. It applies on the roads, it’s applying to the Crossrail Scheme in London at the moment.

    This is where our third principle comes in; that if we are to have a steady, well-planned flow of big transport projects, we will need to use private money more than in the past. The details of this are being worked on at the moment, and we will be coming out with announcements later this year, but I am absolutely convinced that unless we change our attitude towards the use of the private sector in building, operating and maintaining roads, we will keep suffering the same problems.

    For more than 50 years, under every type of Government and through good economic times and bad, our road system has been inadequate. There is no sign that this is changing. The last progress report on the Government’s Ten Year Plan said that although we were promised less congestion when it was launched in 2000, supply chains will have to cope with growing congestion and unreliability. So even under a government that is committed to taxing and spending, the current system shows no sign of improvement. The figures are depressing. The Ten-Year Plan promised a 5% reduction in inter urban congestion, and an 8% reduction in large urban areas. The result has been a predicted increase in journey times of 30% by 2010.

    The solution won’t be a single magic bullet. We will need to use our roads, especially in urban areas, more intelligently—using some of the methods I spoke about earlier. We will need more by-passes. We will need more dualling, and possibly more motorway routes. To fund these new roads, we will need more private finance.

    So we need a complete change in the way we deal with transport policy. It is obvious that the life-cycle of any particular big transport project is very likely to be longer than one particular Parliament, or of one particular Party’s period in power. We need to be grown up about this. In particular we need to set up funding systems so that the temptation for new Governments or new Ministers to drop existing ideas in favour of their own pet projects is minimised.

    So those are the principles. Let me turn now to the specific issue of fuel prices. No one expects the British Government to be in complete control of the oil price. But what the British Government can control is the level of fuel taxes. The Conservative Party voted against Gordon Brown’s increase of 1.9p a litre which he is due to bring in this September. At Prime Minister’s questions this week, shortly before we were all interrupted by noises off and powder on, Michael Howard asked the Prime Minister whether he would reverse this increase. There was a good deal of bluster but no answer. So we have to wait and see what the Government will do. But let me put on the record once and for all that we think this extra imposition should not happen.

    On over-regulation Europe, and specifically the Working Time Directive, I am conscious that later this morning you will be hearing from Philip Bushill-Matthews, my colleague from the European Parliament, and I don’t want to tread too hard on his territory. Apart from anything else, it is bad enough to have to cope with European Directives without having to listen to two different speeches about them in the course of one morning.

    So I will simply set out the main lines of our proposals. We want to get rid of at least a quarter of all existing EU regulations and directives and introduce sunset clauses for new ones. And by this we mean 25% of the total number of regulations and directives, not just a quarter of the pages in the current Acquis, which is the limit of the Commission’s ambition.

    Now you will have heard politicians talk about the desirability of deregulation before. And it’s just possible you may be a little cynical. It’s even possible that I would not blame you for being cynical. You need to know how we would do it. So here goes. There are five points.

    · We want a designated Commissioner with explicit responsibility for meeting deregulation targets.

    · We will use the confirmation hearings for new Commissioners this autumn to test their individual commitments to the deregulation agenda

    · We will use the European Parliament better for the deregulation agenda by initiating pre-legislative scrutiny of legislation, and the impact on competitiveness made explicit in every proposal.

    · We would introduce the right of repeal of legislation to the European Parliament, which would mean the Commission would lose its exclusive right to delete existing laws.

    · We would allow national parliaments to block proposed legislation if the thought it infringed the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.

    So these are practical measures which my colleagues in the European Parliament will pursue, and the more of them we elect on June 10th the more likely they are to be effective.

    Moving on to one of the worst accusations against British Governments, Are they guilty of gold plating European Regulations? Yes they are. Gold plating is a very difficult concept to pin down, but it often means simply making a regulation more detailed and prescriptive in English law than it was when it left Brussels. One way of measuring this is the simple number of words used to transpose a directive into the country’s own legal document. On this basis, the UK adds a staggering two and third times as many words to the average regulation as it had in the original. This is much more than France, and overwhelmingly more than Portugal and Germany, the three countries where these comparisons have been made.

    Changing this requires a change in the culture of Whitehall, which will only come about from a Government committed to deregulation as a central part of its economic thinking. The next Conservative Government will do that.

    Moving briefly onto the Working Time Directive, our desired outcome when we were considering it was the minimum amount of regulation compatible with safety and reasonable comfort. I urged the Government to lobby for extending the reference period over which average working time is calculated. I agreed that a 17-week reference period would be too short, and would damage businesses that have a seasonal focus.

    There has been much progress in the past few weeks. The six-month reference period for calculating the average week is an improvement. So is the definition of night time working. But I still think the omission of a definition of periods of availability is worrying. I hope it simply means that the Department is trying its best to find a definition that will be most helpful to those trying to run a business in difficult circumstances. I know there is a strong case for saying that driving time should be the key measure, and I would be interested to hear your views on this.

    As a final specific point I should address the vexed subject of Road User Charging for lorries. It is good to know, looking at the Austrian example, that this kind of system can be made to work technically, especially when you look over the border at Germany and their problems. And certainly the current situation when British hauliers are put at a competitive disadvantage to other European companies by our own Government because of our fuel duties is neither sensible nor sustainable.

    But the Chancellor’s latest delay in implementation means that the original idea, that UK hauliers deserved a more level playing field, has been forgotten until 2008 at the earliest. I know that many of you believe that the level playing field argument was always a convenient front for introducing technology that would lead to all-out road pricing. That may be true.

    What is beyond argument is that we should be looking for other ways of levelling the playing field between now and 2008, if it can be done in a revenue-neutral way. I have been investigating thoughts of charging lorries that come into Britain on the basis of the mileage used when they are using our roads. So far, all the schemes I have looked at would be effective, but would also be illegal under competition law. So I am still searching. I am sure that many of you will be able to help me in this quest, and I am very receptive. UK hauliers deserve a better deal than the one they currently get from the Government, and I want to work with you all to make sure they receive it.

    One last observation on the Ten Year Plan as a whole. It was, frankly, over-hyped as a solution to our transport problems. The slow progress of the Multi-Modal studies has meant that the implementation of specific road improvements has remained a weak area in the plan. Congestion charging seems to create at least as many problems as it solves. Rail planning is back in the melting pot. Tax incentives for cleaner vehicles are offered with one hand and taken away with the other.

    So the degree of certainty that many people in your industry hoped for when the Plan was unveiled has not happened. There is an alternative vision, where politicians step back from the detail of industrial planning and set the framework for companies and individuals to make their own decisions. That is the vision that I and my colleagues are developing, and I am sure that it can contribute to the long-term health of our the road haulage industry—an industry which itself is absolutely essential to the long-term health of our economy.

  • Theresa May – 2004 Press Release on Family Needs

    Below is the text of a press release issued by Theresa May, the then Shadow Secretary of State for the Family, on 24 August 2004.

    Labour’s plans to improve access arrangements for children whose parents split up will prove to be a big disappointment, Theresa May has warned.

    The Shadow Secretary for the Family accused Government ministers of “papering over the cracks” rather than addressing the real problems at the heart of Britain’s family justice system.

    In a Green Paper being published by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, Labour is seeking to encourage separated parents to embark on a mediation process to find agreement on access and control over their children, rather than going to court. However, the Government has rejected the idea that parents should be guaranteed 50-50 access to their children, claiming that offspring cannot be divided up “like property” after a marriage founders.

    Commenting on the proposals, Mrs May described the package as “a huge disappointment for families up and down the country”, and declared: “Rather than address the real problems at the heart of our family justice system, this Government would rather attempt to paper over the cracks. This is just another false dawn for all those many heartbroken parents and grandparents trapped for years in the courts and denied contact with their children.”

    Highlighting the absence of a presumption in favour of equal rights for parents to have an influence on the upbringing of their children, Mrs May said: “This has meant that parents with residence have found it far easier to obstruct the other parent’s access to their children and their ability to have a say in how those children are brought up. Government must redress that imbalance.”

    She added: “The Government has failed to grasp the real problem at the heart of the current system. What parents want is proper quality parenting time with their children, not the availability of more contact centres and warm words about ‘parenting plans’. Children need to have contact with their mothers and fathers if at all possible. The best parent is both parents. We need to ensure that children grow up with mother and father, and where ever possible Grandparents playing a full and active role in their upbringing.”

  • Ken Livingstone – 2004 Speech on Housing

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ken Livingstone, the then Mayor of London, on 25 May 2004.

    I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak at the second conference the Guardian has organised about housing for key workers. So much is now not just being written and said, but actually done about this important issue that it is easy to forget that just four years ago it was hardly on the agenda as a priority for policy makers.

    I would like to pay tribute to the work of Chris Holmes, the former Director of Shelter, who chaired the London Housing Commission I established immediately after the first Mayoral election. It was Chris’s Commission and their report which identified just how critical this issue was for London.

    The Commission rightly said: “The economic importance of London to the whole country means that the capital’s housing problems are not just a parochial matter. If London begins to fail economically there will be serious implications for the national economy…..The evidence in the Commission’s report demonstrates that there is not just a housing justification for a major increase in the rate of provision of affordable homes but also an economic justification and a public service justification.”

    Another central conclusion of the Commission was that “the definition of affordability must work both for people in traditional housing need and for people on moderate incomes who cannot afford market housing.”

    Over the last four years since the publication of that report we have carried that analysis through into the statutory London Plan. This now sets a requirement for new developments to contain not just traditional affordable housing, but also what has become known in the jargon as “intermediate housing”, catering precisely for the needs of those on moderate incomes up to £40,000 who are priced out of London’s housing market.

    And we have secured new backing from Government for this policy approach. Government has endorsed and agreed the London plan and its housing targets; they have accepted my view that we need to support homes for rent as well as for sale for the intermediate market; and most importantly of all they have backed the policy with the funding that it – needs especially the new £700 million programme announced in March. This programme will give new affordable homes to more than 8,000 key workers in London in the next two years alone. And we have secured 62% of the national pot of resources for London.

    A vital element in the approach has been to set new, higher targets for affordable housing. When I gave my backing to the Housing Commission proposal for an overall 50% target for London there was a predictable outcry from some in the housebuilding and development industry. It was claimed that setting higher targets would hold back housing production and supply.

    Well now we are getting the evidence which shows that the Jeremiahs were simply wrong. The latest ODPM figures for housebuilding completions released this month show that overall housebuilding in London is up 52% since 1999/2000 and private sector housebuilding up by 55%. These welcome increases have coincided precisely with the period in which tougher affordable housing policies have been put in place because of my London Plan. And we have achieved this with the support of greatly increased public resources secured for London from government – the Housing Corporation programme up from £260 million in 199/2000 to £886 million. At the same time the housebuilders have been earning more than reasonable profits.

    And we are on course to deliver 10,000 new affordable homes this year up from 6,000 in 1999/2000. More to do, of course, but we have built a really solid track record of progress. Now there is much more widespread acceptance of the policy approach from the private sector.

    Given this record it is remarkable that during the current election Steve Norris should now be suggesting cutting back on the 50% target. The only consequences of this would be fewer affordable homes for Londoners and higher windfall profits for developers.

    Steve is also completely wrong to claim the target is inflexible. I am inflexible about getting the maximum possible number of affordable homes for London But I promised that site by site the new policy would be implemented flexibly to ensure development was not held back. And that is what I have done on the major developments that come to me, such as on Greenwich Peninsula where we agreed 41% as part of an overall package of transport and other social infrastructure.

    Had our policy starting point at Greenwich been Steve Norris’s 35% rather than 50% we would have lost at least 600 affordable homes on that one site alone. And over the next four years we would lose 20,000 affordable homes right across London.

    One other important lesson from the Housing Commission is that key workers are not just nurses, teachers and police, vital though they are. The people who clean and porter at London’s hospitals are just as essential as the doctors; the people working in hotels who keep London’s tourism industry going are key workers; and so are the lower paid office workers who support London’s back office finance sector.

    I agree with the Commission that our longer term objective must be to create an intermediate housing market in London that caters for the needs of all these people on moderate incomes, not just for narrowly defined occupational groups. And, of course, many of London’s key workers on the lowest incomes need more social housing. The idea that you help key workers by cutting social housing is an illusion.

    But it is good news that we are now creating more low cost home ownership opportunities in London than ever before. And I am delighted that many of these schemes are also at the cutting edge of high quality design and the best environmental and energy efficiency standards.

    There are fantastic examples of this built or being built in London by the private sector and by housing associations. One of the earliest housing schemes to come to me for a planning decision was the Grand Union Village scheme on the canal on the borders of Ealing and Hillingdon. When I first saw the scheme I asked my planning officers couldn’t we get more homes on the site while still having a really well designed and attractive development. If that could be done, the scheme should be more profitable which would allow the developer to provide more than the 25% affordable housing on offer.

    The GLA planners were able to negotiate successfully for more homes and an increase in the amount of affordable housing to 35% with a big key worker component. I was delighted to go and open the scheme and see how not only were we housing local teachers and newly recruited police community support officers. But the scheme also met the highest standards of energy efficiency and recycling provision and had created new high quality open space and restored the canal basins.

    As so often the quality of the scheme which is low rise – and the experience for people living there – was so much better at the higher density.

    This month has also seen two London shared ownership schemes built by housing associations winning awards. in Haringey Circle 33 have worked with the Council and Primary Care Trust to turn an unpopular local eyesore into another award winning scheme of 71 shared ownership and rented homes, a healthy living centre and a CAB.

    And in Barking Tower Homes won the national Affordable Home Ownership award for its top quality scheme of 69 shared ownership and rented homes which again meets my aspirations for more sustainable housing – photovoltaic cells in roof panels, low energy fittings, all meeting the lifetime homes standards now required by the London Plan and all with private rear gardens. This was also a scheme which tackled affordability in the right way – the average share bought was 41 per cent and the average income of the main owner £18,850.

    Right across London there are more and more schemes like this underway – showing it is possible to produce genuinely mixed tenure developments – market and discounted sale, shared ownership and housing for rent – and with all the tenures pepper-potted, indistinguishable and built to the same standard. This is the right and only way forward for London’s new homes programme.

    So for the future we need to keep up the pressure to hit the targets for supply and affordable supply – this year a minimum of 10,000 new affordable homes; next year closer to 15,000 and keeping at least at that level. Maintaining the overall 50% target is absolutely vital; and delivering the target will mean that we need to achieve more than 50% on some sites. Obviously housing association developments will help with that – and so will the exciting new initiative by English Partnerships to assemble land for affordable homes, especially for key workers. This should produce at least another 4,000 affordable homes over the next two to three years.

    Another approach I want to encourage is securing more key worker housing without the need for public subsidy. More developers and builders are now coming forward with schemes of this sort and these should be encouraged through planning policy. On suitable sites particularly in areas where there are already high levels of social housing we should encourage developments of 100% key worker housing for rent and shared ownership. Increasingly there are signs that big financial institutions are interested in investing in this type of development opening up a minor new sources of finance for more key worker homes in London.

    And we must continue to be imaginative in the way we use land – encouraging high quality mixed use development and looking for new capacity to build more homes. We have worked with the major supermarket firms to encourage them to build more housing above and around their new stores. Again this month we have seen another big scheme coming forward with Tescos planning to build 104 new homes above a new store in Clapham.

    I believe there is further major potential to build new homes – and especially affordable homes – on and around rail and Underground stations and I will be asking London Underground to work with partners such as English Partnerships, housing associations and house-builders to develop a strategy to maximise these opportunities.

    I will continue to work with and support other new initiatives to provide more key worker homes. Later at the Conference you will be hearing about the ‘More than Halfway There’ scheme which brings together big employers and trade unions in London to support building more key worker homes in London. I was delighted that the GLA was able to work with Britannia Building Society and other partners to support this scheme with feasilbility money, and look forward to these and other similar initiatives bearing fruit and housing London workers.

    The other major challenge we face is to make sure that we deliver the new infrastructure that is essential for building London’s new homes and communities. New public transport schemes are vital to connect new homes to jobs and allow better quality and more intensive development. Cutting back on proposed transport schemes would seriously damage the drive for new homes for Londoners.

    Just as important as transport is delivering more high quality schools, health care and other community facilities. These are needed for London’s growing population but will also improve services and facilities for existing residents. I have been working closely with the NHS and the Department for Education to plan together how to make these extra investments in London’s public services.

    We now have much better co-ordinated policy to support the new homes Londoners need – and we have started to make real, demonstrable progress on delivering more homes and serving a much wider range of people in housing need, especially key workers. The new office of Mayor has made a decisive difference in bringing planning, housing and transport policies together, securing extra resources, supporting new initiatives and setting the right targets for new affordable homes.

    The Barker Review – on the heels of the Sustainable Communities Action Plan – was the latest and perhaps most significant sign of the greater political priority the government is now giving to building new homes. Particularly significant because it comes with the backing of the Treasury.

    The Treasury have accepted Kate Barker’s important recommendation about the need to bring together responsibility for strategic housing and planning policy at the regional level. We have already made big strides in that direction in London and shown the approach delivers real results, more homes. I will work with government to implement the Barker proposals in London which should mean giving the Mayor important new responsibilities for strategic housing policy and investment.. Given the right powers, more public and private investment, working in partnership, but not relaxing our targets we can deliver more and more of the high quality affordable homes London’s public and private sector workers aspire to.

  • Paul Maynard – 2017 Speech on Travel for Disabled Passengers

    Below is the text of the speech made by Paul Maynard, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Rail, Accessibility and HS2, on 15 November 2017.

    Introduction

    I welcome the publication of these three pieces of important research today. I am grateful to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) for carrying them out.

    And I am grateful to those in the rail industry who assisted in the research.

    Many of whom are here today.

    I take that as a sign of your commitment to learn from this research and to take action where it’s needed.

    Because it is through research of this kind that we gain the hard evidence we need to improve services for passengers.

    We learn what is being done well.

    For instance, we learn how much of a difference can be made by helpful, caring, considerate staff.

    And it’s right that we recognise those members of rail staff who not only fulfil their formal obligations to disabled passengers, but do so with a smile, with kindness, while allowing passengers to sense that their custom is valued.

    And I know that later you’ll be hearing some case studies of good service provided by Network Rail, Virgin Trains East Coast, and the work of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee.

    But we also learn from research of this kind what is not being done so well.

    And in this research we do learn rather a lot.

    And, again, it’s right that we recognise what’s not working – and the need to improve.

    So I’d like to spend a little more time discussing these areas.

    Awareness of support

    For me one of the most striking features of the research is that today disabled passengers are not sufficiently aware of their rights to access help.

    In fact, over 71% of those eligible to use passenger assist don’t know anything about the scheme.

    Of those who did know about their right to help, most learned through word of mouth.

    Either from helpful rail staff, or from friends and family.

    That’s not a bad thing in itself.

    But word of mouth isn’t enough.

    After all, if you don’t know about help available in the first place, how can you tell others?

    Greater awareness must come from better communication by train operating companies themselves.

    Reliability of service

    The next striking finding of the research is that customer satisfaction is most commonly linked with 3 elements.

    The first is whether passengers actually receive the help they request.

    Now, I understand that things can go wrong.

    But if there’s one thing train companies need to be good at, it’s getting people to the right place at the right time.

    But at the moment, most of the explanations put forward by passengers for assistance failures include:

    – staff not arriving to meet them at agreed points

    – staff being late

    – trains not arriving on time, so staff or equipment to help with alighting are not available as they should be

    – or stations at either end not being aware of their journey.

    These should be easy things to fix.

    Getting people to the right place at the right time, and communicating information down the line; this is the bread and butter of any rail company.

    But for a variety of reasons, disabled people aren’t getting the service they are owed.

    Staff attitude

    Then there’s the second big concern of passengers – the attitude of staff.

    I’ve already said what a positive difference caring, considerate staff can make.

    And the overwhelming majority of staff on the railway are exactly that – often going above and beyond the call of duty to deliver a quality service to vulnerable passengers.

    But it is equally true that it can only take one disappointing interaction to rob someone of their confidence in using the transport network.

    Passengers have talked about being made to feel an inconvenience.

    When a disabled passenger turns up at the station, they are maybe asked “have you booked?” – in what can seem like accusing tones.

    Staff may be unable to spot or react properly to hidden disabilities, such as learning difficulties.

    Or they may seem sceptical whether help is really needed.

    Yet as the prevalence of hidden conditions such as dementia increases in our society, the ability of the railway to respond properly must increase accordingly.

    Again, this shouldn’t be too difficult to remedy.

    A lot of it is about good and thorough staff training.

    Of the kind that should elementary for anyone working in a customer-facing role today.

    In my own constituency, I’ve seen the superb work done by Jane Cole of Blackpool Transport to improve the understanding of bus drivers of the needs of disabled passengers; work informed by Jane’s previous role in setting up Virgin’s original passenger assist programme.

    Jane is now the government’s Champion for Accessible Transport working with the Disabilities Minister, and I hope we can tap into her undoubted expertise.

    Facilities

    The third major influencing factor – after whether requested help is received, and staff attitudes – is whether facilities are up to scratch.

    General accessibility, toilets, lighting, seating, lifts and everything else.

    Now I recognise that, of the 3, in some circumstances this can be the most challenging to get right.

    That’s one legacy of operating the oldest rail network in the world.

    Built to Victorian standards.

    And I am glad that Network Rail and others have worked hard to find creative ways to fit accessible solutions within historic architecture.

    But while getting it right may be challenging, it’s still essential.

    We need to do more to ensure more toilets on board trains are in service more of the time.

    But where they are out of order, we need to fix them, and do it fast.

    And until they’re fixed, inform passengers in sufficient time before they board.

    No one should suffer being caught short while trapped on a train.

    Just as no one with vision or spatial awareness challenges should find themselves on a dark platform, illuminated only by a flickering light.

    I could go on, but you don’t need me to spell out all the possible scenarios in which things can go wrong.

    The research is already quite clear on what the issues are, and what needs to be done about them.

    Need for enforcement

    And all of the above explains why enforcement of these duties is so important, and why the ORR has such an important role to play.

    Not only is it the railway’s economic regulator, but it is also the passenger’s champion when it comes to the handling of complaints, the provision of information during disruption and the provision of services to disabled passengers.

    These duties are not in conflict, but rather are complementary.

    At the same time, each duty requires a very different mind-set.

    I know the ORR has always fought to make sure operators do the right thing for passengers – including holding train operating companies to account for their finances.

    And I strongly believe there is no-one better positioned to influence operators, to re-balance the railway in favour of the passenger.

    In this role, I see ORR having a visible presence, upholding the legitimate expectations of the fare-paying passenger.

    ORR cannot do this alone.

    It needs to bring the industry with them on the journey towards higher standards.

    But just as justice delayed is justice denied, so is justice in the shadows justice denied.

    My inbox and postbag overflows with complaints from those who have not received the level of service they are entitled to when seeking passenger assistance on the railway.

    People need to see the strong hand of the ORR guiding these improvements.

    ORR holds many enforcement powers that it could be using right now to deliver justice.

    As the ORR builds up its evidence base, and negotiates improvements by consensus, I would like to see them wielding these powers.

    To become an earnest advocate for passengers who need them the most.

    To think creatively about how its consumer-facing role requires an outward-facing advocacy on behalf of disabled passengers.

    To seize the opportunity presented by the impending arrival of the Passenger Ombudsman to complement that work by ensuring that the consumer duties it has are explored to their fullest extent.

    And by challenging the industry at each and every opportunity.

    So as a next step, I would welcome the thoughts of the ORR on how it intends to respond to complaints about levels of accessibility on the railway.

    Whether through published league tables, through examples of bad and good practice, or through naming and shaming the very worst.

    With creativity, I know that the ORR can truly make a difference.

    Conclusions

    So, thank you again for this vital work.

    It gives us the evidence and the information we need to make things better.

    It give us a new opportunity.

    So let us be the ones who seize that opportunity.

    And make travelling better for everyone.

    Thank you.